This information only refers to the official release on the Flash Portal.

Alien Hominid is a popular Run 'n Gun flash game made by Tom Fulp and Dan Paladin. Tom did the action scripting and Paladin did the artwork. Alien hominid was the first flash game to become a console game.

Contents

Alien Hominid consists of a single level, with a large number of enemy agents, a miniboss robot, and a final boss. Although the game can be defeated in less than ten minutes, it is still considered fairly difficult. Players start the game with ten lives, have few ways of getting new lives, and lose a life in a single hit. Combined with the large number of enemies, who can shoot in various directions, and the lack of checkpoints, this can potentially make the single level very difficult for the novice player. This difficulty is reduced somewhat by the occasional power ups for the Alien Hominid's gun, which increase its strength for a limited number of shots.

Alien Hominid is controlled using the arrow keys, A key, and S key. The left and right keys are used to move left and right respectively, while the up key makes the Alien Hominid face up. The down key is used to either duck and crawl or to face down while in the air. The S key is used to jump, an important technique for avoiding enemy attacks. The A key is used to attack in a variety of fashions. Usually, pressing the A key will cause the Alien Hominid to shoot in any direction he's facing, be it left, right, up, or down. If he shoots down, his descent is slowed, due to the gun's strong recoil. If an enemy is directly next to the player, the Alien Hominid will automatically use his knife instead. When attacking an enemy from a short distance above, the Hominid will leap onto their head and ride around on them for a short while before killing them.

Alien Hominid's graphics are drawn by Dan Paladin, and feature his signature cartoony art style. Enemies lack detail, but have a remarkably large number of sprites and expressive facial expressions. The background and various objects, though once again lacking detail, are drawn in a similarly humorous style, and contain hidden jokes. For example, one of the background shops advertises that it enlarges body parts, and shows a stick figure with what appears to be abnormally large genitalia. The music was made by Lavender Hill Mob, also known as LHM for short.

Alien Hominid is one of the most popular submissions in Newgrounds history. As of October 2010, it has over 19 million views, making it the 9th most viewed submission in the Flash Portal. With over 320,000 votes, it is the 8th most voted on, and with over 16,300 reviews, it is the third most reviewed submission. Its actual critical success is similarly impressive, with an average review of 9.1/10, in addition to the Daily Feature and Weekly Users' Choice awards. Alien Hominid is also featured in three collections: Action Games, Flash Portal History, and Metal Slug. It also has the honor of sharing its icon with the first two of those collections, two of the largest on Newgrounds.

The titular Alien Hominid has become one of Newgrounds's mascots. He appears on the main Flash Portal page along with several other characters in The Gang. He also makes an appearance on the main Action Games page.

Alien Hominid's success led to the formation of The Behemoth and the creation of the Alien Hominid Console Game.